Tengai Makyō: Ziria

CD-ROM

Beside being the starting point of one of the most successful and long-running RPG series and of semi-humorous RPGs in general, Tengai Makyō: Ziria holds another record that will never be broken: it was the first role-playing game (and one of the first games generally) that came on a CD-ROM.

Extras

Tengai Makyō: Ziria comes with a thick manual (72 pages) that contain not only story summary, character introduction, gameplay explanation, etc., but also a comic-book intro to the game, and a whole "Making Of" section that introduces the developers and shows how the game was made.

Inspiration

Ziria is loosely based on the Japanese folk tale of the ninja Jiraiya. The main character's name is pronounced identically, though it is romanized differently and also natively spelled with different Chinese characters (自来也 instead of the original 児雷也). Two other prominent characters from the folk tale, Tsunade (綱手) and Orochimaru (大蛇丸), are also the game's main playable characters. All three share some characteristics with the prototypes, particularly in the type of special attacks they possess, all based on a specific animal (toad for Ziria, snails for Tsunade, snake for Orochimaru). The plot and the relationship between the characters, however, are quite different.

Release history

There are both standard CD and Super CD releases of the game. The CD version is the original commercial release from 1989, while the SCD version was released as part of a promotion for the PC Engine Duo in 1992. It was sent for free to the first 30,000 people to purchase a PC Engine Duo. The SCD version of the game is virtually identical to the CD version, except that it has fewer (though longer) load times.

Information also contributed by jotaro.raido and Kaminari